Star Wars Day

[StringerBell]

2 hours ago, StaffsRam said:

EA's acquisition of BW really harmed them. You look at Mass Effect 3, and it comes across as rushed, and then you discover that they were pushed, hard, by EA on the release timescales. If they'd had another six months that could have been a great game, but they literally wrote the ending mission within the last few weeks before having to craft it. 

The Mass Effect 3 ending debacle also hurt them, reputationally. Their absolute refusal to admit that they screwed up, and the tone they took when they eventually decided that they couldn't ride out the sh1tstorm - that they were doing the DLC because fans didn't 'get' their original ending, stank.

It also didn't help that they completely misjudged their target audience and what they'd 'accept'. Not enjoy, just what they'd accept as a bare minimum. 

Just convince yourself that the 'indoctrination theory' is real and all of a sudden it's the best ending to a game ever.

[Sith Happens]

20 hours ago, SaintRam said:

Don't be silly. There's plenty wrong with LoTR but plenty incredible about it also. 

Can be overrated in your opinion, because everyone can't like something, but I don't think movies that won Oscars should be in a discussion for it, personally  

Titanic won like a million oscars and to me is one of the most overrated films ever.

I think LOTR is vastly overrated too, i managed to get through the first 2, but not quite the final one. Also the hobbit...yawn fest or what.

[PistoldPete2]

21 hours ago, ketteringram said:

Have not seen any of the star wars films, not my sort of thing, so can't comment. 

To answer your question though, surely it must be Lord of the rings. 

No that is nonsense. There is a proper story to Lord of the rings. Some of these modern films have no real story they are just special effects and famous actors for the sake of it. 

[PistoldPete2]

20 hours ago, David said:

That's actually a great call as would Harry Potter be, but I reckon Star Wars just shades them both ever so slightly

I guess your dislike of LoTR is similar to GoT, too many characters , silly names etc. But I like that sort of thing. GoT needs lots of characters as they all get killed off. never understood the fuss over Harry Potter, that's true enough. 

[Day]

45 minutes ago, PistoldPete2 said:

I guess your dislike of LoTR is similar to GoT, too many characters , silly names etc. But I like that sort of thing. GoT needs lots of characters as they all get killed off. never understood the fuss over Harry Potter, that's true enough. 

Yeah, to be honest I lost interest in fantasy based tv programmes/films roughly the same time I started puberty.

I get the nostalgia attached with Star Wars slightly if you grew up with it, although I used to love Teenage Mutant Turtles when I was a kid, can't say I rushed out to watch the later films and went to the cinema in fancy dress.

Anyone my age and younger are clearly jumping on the hype bandwagon because if you watch them from the start now for the first time they are so so soooo poor but would have been great at the time.

Lord of the Rings I've tried to watch several times with ex's yet never stayed awake to watch one through. It has to be a good film to keep your interest past an hour and half. Every time I've sat there and thought.....this isn't aimed at me, this is for 14 year olds, same as Star Wars.

Game of Thrones to be fair I actually enjoyed season 1, 2 was ok then I lost it mid way through 3 as more characters flooded in and whenever the dragons came into it. Take away the nudity and again your target audience is 14 years old surely? Thought Jon Snow's wolves were pretty cool but the dragons had me...

 

[SaintRam]

18 minutes ago, David said:

Yeah, to be honest I lost interest in fantasy based tv programmes/films roughly the same time I started puberty.

I get the nostalgia attached with Star Wars slightly if you grew up with it, although I used to love Teenage Mutant Turtles when I was a kid, can't say I rushed out to watch the later films and went to the cinema in fancy dress.

Anyone my age and younger are clearly jumping on the hype bandwagon because if you watch them from the start now for the first time they are so so soooo poor but would have been great at the time.

Lord of the Rings I've tried to watch several times with ex's yet never stayed awake to watch one through. It has to be a good film to keep your interest past an hour and half. Every time I've sat there and thought.....this isn't aimed at me, this is for 14 year olds, same as Star Wars.

Game of Thrones to be fair I actually enjoyed season 1, 2 was ok then I lost it mid way through 3 as more characters flooded in and whenever the dragons came into it. Take away the nudity and again your target audience is 14 years old surely? Thought Jon Snow's wolves were pretty cool but the dragons had me...

 

There are a lot less characters now than in season 3 

[Wolfie]

I haven't seen any of the recent long running dramas like GoT or Walking Dead. I think it's because I'm worried I'll get into something that gets cancelled for no apparent reason or simply turns to turd as the writers gradually lose interest and forget what they initially wanted to do with it.

I'll patent it as "The 'Lost' effect".

[SaintRam]

1 hour ago, Paul71 said:

Titanic won like a million oscars and to me is one of the most overrated films ever.

I think LOTR is vastly overrated too, i managed to get through the first 2, but not quite the final one. Also the hobbit...yawn fest or what.

Obviously I disagree with people who don't like LOTR, but everyones welcome to their opinion.

What I meant by the original post is that I can see the objective failings of Star Wars, things that are worse in it than in the average film, and I'm not sure the stuff its good at outweighs that. In fact I'm sure it doesn't. I'm still enjoy Star Wars but I understand the movies aren't very good at more than just a subjective level (of course, the argument of subjectivity v objectivity could rage on here but I just can't imagine anyone thinking "Well from my perspective the Jedi are evil!" is a good line, for instance).

Just feel like LOTR like/dislike is purely subjective, and adding to the discussion of being overrated will boil down to "I like it", "well I don't" (which is in essence what any of these discussions boil down to) while it's far easier to defend the opinion of a movie series being overrated if there's as much (more uniformly judged areas - acting/writing etc.) wrong with it as there is with SW or HP. 

[Wolfie]

1 hour ago, SaintRam said:

There are a lot less characters now than in season 3 

fewer

At least that's what I'd put if I was a grammar pedant. Which I'm not.

[Sith Happens]

54 minutes ago, SaintRam said:

Obviously I disagree with people who don't like LOTR, but everyones welcome to their opinion.

What I meant by the original post is that I can see the objective failings of Star Wars, things that are worse in it than in the average film, and I'm not sure the stuff its good at outweighs that. In fact I'm sure it doesn't. I'm still enjoy Star Wars but I understand the movies aren't very good at more than just a subjective level (of course, the argument of subjectivity v objectivity could rage on here but I just can't imagine anyone thinking "Well from my perspective the Jedi are evil!" is a good line, for instance).

Just feel like LOTR like/dislike is purely subjective, and adding to the discussion of being overrated will boil down to "I like it", "well I don't" (which is in essence what any of these discussions boil down to) while it's far easier to defend the opinion of a movie series being overrated if there's as much (more uniformly judged areas - acting/writing etc.) wrong with it as there is with SW or HP. 

As you say opinion. The failing of the lord of the rings films and especially the hobbit is length of movie. Yes i know the books were long, but take Jurassic Park as an example, that was a good film based on a book but only picked out certain elements from the book in order to make it an entertaining film.

In my opinion the LOTR films are just too long, i mean i could start watching one, have a nap, nip out and but some milk, wash the car, and still not have missed anything.

And dont get me stared on Potter...they were ok, but why on earth did the last film need splitting into two, just drag it out somemore.

I really think the optimum film length should be 2 - 2.15 hours, anything over that is just filler.

[SaintRam]

Just now, Wolfie said:

fewer

At least that's what I'd put if I was a grammar pedant. Which I'm not.

Thought 'less' was acceptable if there isn't an adjective being used? (If you use less with an adjective (less notable characters) you're saying the characters are less notable, rather than there being fewer characters). Could be wrong, maybe less is never acceptable. 

Also, is "a lot fewer" correct? Wouldn't it need to be "far fewer"?

[SaintRam]

1 minute ago, Paul71 said:

As you say opinion. The failing of the lord of the rings films and especially the hobbit is length of movie. Yes i know the books were long, but take Jurassic Park as an example, that was a good film based on a book but only picked out certain elements from the book in order to make it an entertaining film.

In my opinion the LOTR films are just too long, i mean i could start watching one, have a nap, nip out and but some milk, wash the car, and still not have missed anything.

And dont get me stared on Potter...they were ok, but why on earth did the last film need splitting into two, just drag it out somemore.

I really think the optimum film length should be 2 - 2.15 hours, anything over that is just filler.

I hate the Potter films. Acting of all the children in the early films was awful. Only a couple of them improved, Radcliffe not being one of them.

[Wolfie]

15 minutes ago, SaintRam said:

Thought 'less' was acceptable if there isn't an adjective being used? (If you use less with an adjective (less notable characters) you're saying the characters are less notable, rather than there being fewer characters). Could be wrong, maybe less is never acceptable. 

Also, is "a lot fewer" correct? Wouldn't it need to be "far fewer"?

As I understand it, fewer should be used if there are multiple things, so it's fewer drops of water but less water, as water is a singular thing.

Quote

Also, is "a lot fewer" correct? Wouldn't it need to be "far fewer"?

Both sound right to me.

This less/fewer thing is something I'd never really thought about but heard about it on the radio a few months ago and have been annoying myself with it since by noticing when it's wrong.

Sorry.

[SaintRam]

6 minutes ago, Wolfie said:

As I understand it, fewer should be used if there are multiple things, so it's fewer drops of water but less water, as water is a singular thing.

Both sound right to me.

This less/fewer thing is something I'd never really thought about but heard about it on the radio a few months ago and have been annoying myself with it since by noticing when it's wrong.

Sorry.

Yeah that makes sense, I know the problem with less is that it has different definitions depending on what comes after it. With the statement I made though it has no ambiguity so I don't think it was actually grammatically incorrect. But in the end who really cares. Give it 20 years and dialogue will have changed again.

 

[Sith Happens]

30 minutes ago, SaintRam said:

I hate the Potter films. Acting of all the children in the early films was awful. Only a couple of them improved, Radcliffe not being one of them.

The one thing i know, certainly about the original 3 star wars, was that there was nothing like it at the time, as a kid i was almost counting down to ROTJ coming out. Back then when a 'blockbuster' was released it was massive, you could probably count just a few films that fell into that category, for me Jaws, Star Wars, ET, Raiders, Back to the Future were all WOW films at the time.

I remember Jaws being on TV the first time, it was a thursday night and even our cub scouts closed because no one was going to turn up....back then vey few people had video's so you had to watch it, now its a i'll catch it sometime or other.

The prequel star wars were a massive let down, i was excited at the phantom menace and came out thinking WTF was that, but the force awakens got me excited all over again and in my opinion was great, yes i can see how it is the same as Star Wars (i refuse to call ti a new hope) in many places but so what if people enjoyed it, it was no were near as bad as the last star trek film for ripping off the wrath of khan.

For recent films that are a series I will give a thumbs up to the hunger games, i thought it was going to be a silly kids film but really enjoyed it.

 

[SaintRam]

1 minute ago, Paul71 said:

The one thing i know, certainly about the original 3 star wars, was that there was nothing like it at the time, as a kid i was almost counting down to ROTJ coming out. Back then when a 'blockbuster' was released it was massive, you could probably count just a few films that fell into that category, for me Jaws, Star Wars, ET, Raiders, Back to the Future were all WOW films at the time.

I remember Jaws being on TV the first time, it was a thursday night and even our cub scouts closed because no one was going to turn up....back then vey few people had video's so you had to watch it, now its a i'll catch it sometime or other.

The prequel star wars were a massive let down, i was excited at the phantom menace and came out thinking WTF was that, but the force awakens got me excited all over again and in my opinion was great, yes i can see how it is the same as Star Wars (i refuse to call ti a new hope) in many places but so what if people enjoyed it, it was no were near as bad as the last star trek film for ripping off the wrath of khan.

For recent films that are a series I will give a thumbs up to the hunger games, i thought it was going to be a silly kids film but really enjoyed it.

 

My criticism of TFA was not that it was too similar to Star Wars. Other than the writing which is standard across all Star Wars films, the plot made so little sense. They seemed far too interested in forcing elements of the plot forward, without any explanation.

 

The little SPOILER thing is not working (as in, its no longer there). I don't like to assume everyones seen it, although they should have if they care about it. Anywho, about to discuss the major plot line.

 

 

Having a character with a strong natural connection to the force is one thing, then that character starts to rapidly learn how to use when a force-user starts messing with her mind. Now, you can shoehorn in some explanation for that, based around her learning some stuff from being in his head or some other garbage explanations I've heard, but it would not be consistent with anything we've learnt about the force from other films. Finally, she then can suddenly use a lightsaber and defeats someone who's supposedly trained far more than people claim when defending the scene.

Using a lightsaber isn't just using the force, sure you can use the force to help guide you to blocking shots from a training droid while you learn to attune yourself, but to actually fight against another lightsaber user... the fighting styles alone take years to learn (You'll remember, Luke was terrible at it). Just annoyed me. They put that scene in a setting where it was EASY to have an alternate road to the same destination (him being injured and her leaving), without having to **** with the whole concept of what a Jedi is and what mastering the force entails.

She's already at a higher level than some Jedis you see during the Clone Wars and earlier (Earlier being the world of the old republic, de-canonised by Disney but still worthy of reference imo) but that was largely due to an increase in numbers on both sides thinning the pool, as it were. Just silly. Could have easily not had her use a lightsaber in a fight until the second movie and it would have been infinitely better. 

[Wolfie]

15 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

The one thing i know, certainly about the original 3 star wars, was that there was nothing like it at the time, as a kid i was almost counting down to ROTJ coming out. Back then when a 'blockbuster' was released it was massive, you could probably count just a few films that fell into that category, for me Jaws, Star Wars, ET, Raiders, Back to the Future were all WOW films at the time.

I remember Jaws being on TV the first time, it was a thursday night and even our cub scouts closed because no one was going to turn up....back then vey few people had video's so you had to watch it, now its a i'll catch it sometime or other.

The prequel star wars were a massive let down, i was excited at the phantom menace and came out thinking WTF was that, but the force awakens got me excited all over again and in my opinion was great, yes i can see how it is the same as Star Wars (i refuse to call ti a new hope) in many places but so what if people enjoyed it, it was no were near as bad as the last star trek film for ripping off the wrath of khan.

For recent films that are a series I will give a thumbs up to the hunger games, i thought it was going to be a silly kids film but really enjoyed it.

 

Pretty much 100% sums up my thoughts as well.

I'd forgotten about the Jaws thing. I'm guessing we're a similar age & I remember the same happening with me & everyone talking about it (especially the severed head moment) the next day at school.

Those were real occasion films for us as kids.

[PistoldPete2]

1 hour ago, Paul71 said:

As you say opinion. The failing of the lord of the rings films and especially the hobbit is length of movie. Yes i know the books were long, but take Jurassic Park as an example, that was a good film based on a book but only picked out certain elements from the book in order to make it an entertaining film.

In my opinion the LOTR films are just too long, i mean i could start watching one, have a nap, nip out and but some milk, wash the car, and still not have missed anything.

And dont get me stared on Potter...they were ok, but why on earth did the last film need splitting into two, just drag it out somemore.

I really think the optimum film length should be 2 - 2.15 hours, anything over that is just filler.

Maybe they could have made LOTR into 6 films not 3. The Hobbit films were too long I agree... same length as LOTR when the book was much shorter.Pirates of Caribbean also far too long.

[Sith Happens]

1 hour ago, PistoldPete2 said:

Maybe they could have made LOTR into 6 films not 3. The Hobbit films were too long I agree... same length as LOTR when the book was much shorter.Pirates of Caribbean also far too long.

dont get me started on pirates of the caribbean...hate them.

 

[Sith Happens]

2 hours ago, SaintRam said:

My criticism of TFA was not that it was too similar to Star Wars. Other than the writing which is standard across all Star Wars films, the plot made so little sense. They seemed far too interested in forcing elements of the plot forward, without any explanation.

 

The little SPOILER thing is not working (as in, its no longer there). I don't like to assume everyones seen it, although they should have if they care about it. Anywho, about to discuss the major plot line.

 

 

Having a character with a strong natural connection to the force is one thing, then that character starts to rapidly learn how to use when a force-user starts messing with her mind. Now, you can shoehorn in some explanation for that, based around her learning some stuff from being in his head or some other garbage explanations I've heard, but it would not be consistent with anything we've learnt about the force from other films. Finally, she then can suddenly use a lightsaber and defeats someone who's supposedly trained far more than people claim when defending the scene.

Using a lightsaber isn't just using the force, sure you can use the force to help guide you to blocking shots from a training droid while you learn to attune yourself, but to actually fight against another lightsaber user... the fighting styles alone take years to learn (You'll remember, Luke was terrible at it). Just annoyed me. They put that scene in a setting where it was EASY to have an alternate road to the same destination (him being injured and her leaving), without having to **** with the whole concept of what a Jedi is and what mastering the force entails.

She's already at a higher level than some Jedis you see during the Clone Wars and earlier (Earlier being the world of the old republic, de-canonised by Disney but still worthy of reference imo) but that was largely due to an increase in numbers on both sides thinning the pool, as it were. Just silly. Could have easily not had her use a lightsaber in a fight until the second movie and it would have been infinitely better. 

I get that, i am sort of hoping some sort of 'oh that makes sense now' moment will occur in the next film or two.